IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v202y2022icp119-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Intrinsic preferences for unhappy news

Author

Listed:
  • Lane, Tom

Abstract

In ordinary life, many types of situation occur in which a better-informed agent faces a decision over whether to reveal some bad news to an uninformed counterpart. This paper reports an experiment designed to explore how, in such contexts, the decisions of informed individuals are shaped by intrinsic preferences over information. Impartial spectators are tasked with deciding whether to make initially uninformed subjects aware that their actions have inadvertently generated negative externalities. Knowledge of this consequence is materially useless and reduces the subjective happiness of the externality-generating subjects, as is anticipated by the vast majority of spectators. However, 72% of spectators still choose to reveal the information. This suggests the existence of intrinsic preferences for information possession which are not based on hedonic considerations and indeed are sufficiently strong as to trump spectators’ concerns about the negative hedonic consequences of revelation. However, the hedonic impact of information is not completely overlooked, as spectators are less likely to reveal information the more strongly they believe it will damage the recipient's happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Lane, Tom, 2022. "Intrinsic preferences for unhappy news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 119-130.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:202:y:2022:i:c:p:119-130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.08.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122002803
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.08.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    2. Daniel Bennett & Stefan Bode & Maja Brydevall & Hayley Warren & Carsten Murawski, 2016. "Intrinsic Valuation of Information in Decision Making under Uncertainty," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-21, July.
    3. Elliot Lipnowski & Laurent Mathevet, 2018. "Disclosure to a Psychological Audience," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 67-93, November.
    4. Mollerstrom, Johanna & Reme, Bjørn-Atle & Sørensen, Erik Ø., 2015. "Luck, choice and responsibility — An experimental study of fairness views," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 33-40.
    5. Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech, 2018. "Optimal Revelation of Life-Changing Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5250-5262, November.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    7. Adler, Matthew D. & Dolan, Paul & Kavetsos, Georgios, 2017. "Would you choose to be happy? Tradeoffs between happiness and the other dimensions of life in a large population survey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 60-73.
    8. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2004. "The supply of information by a concerned expert," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 487-505, July.
    9. Cooper, David J., 2014. "A Note on Deception in Economic Experiments," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(02), pages 111-114, August.
    10. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Alex Rees-Jones, 2014. "Can Marginal Rates of Substitution Be Inferred from Happiness Data? Evidence from Residency Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(11), pages 3498-3528, November.
    11. Johannes Abeler & Daniele Nosenzo & Collin Raymond, 2019. "Preferences for Truth‐Telling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1115-1153, July.
    12. Gary Charness & Anya Samek & Jeroen Ven, 2022. "What is considered deception in experimental economics?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 385-412, April.
    13. Nattavudh Powdthavee & Yohanes E. Riyanto, 2015. "Would you Pay for Transparently Useless Advice? A Test of Boundaries of Beliefs in The Folly of Predictions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 257-272, May.
    14. Urs Fischbacher & Franziska Föllmi-Heusi, 2013. "Lies In Disguise—An Experimental Study On Cheating," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 525-547, June.
    15. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Alex Rees-Jones, 2012. "What Do You Think Would Make You Happier? What Do You Think You Would Choose?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2083-2110, August.
    16. Johnny King L. Lau & Hiroki Ozono & Kei Kuratomi & Asuka Komiya & Kou Murayama, 2020. "Shared striatal activity in decisions to satisfy curiosity and hunger at the risk of electric shocks," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 531-543, May.
    17. Chater, Nick & Loewenstein, George, 2016. "The under-appreciated drive for sense-making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PB), pages 137-154.
    18. Alexander W. Cappelen & James Konow & Erik ?. S?rensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2013. "Just Luck: An Experimental Study of Risk-Taking and Fairness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1398-1413, June.
    19. Grant, Simon & Kajii, Atsushi & Polak, Ben, 1998. "Intrinsic Preference for Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 233-259, December.
    20. Mitchell Hoffman, 2016. "How is Information Valued? Evidence from Framed Field Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(595), pages 1884-1911, September.
    21. Emily Oster & Ira Shoulson & E. Ray Dorsey, 2013. "Optimal Expectations and Limited Medical Testing: Evidence from Huntington Disease," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 804-830, April.
    22. Benjamin, Dan & Cooper, Kristen & Heffetz, Ori & Kimball, Miles, 2020. "Self-reported wellbeing indicators are a valuable complement to traditional economic indicators but are not yet ready to compete with them," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 198-209, July.
    23. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    24. Eliaz, Kfir & Schotter, Andrew, 2010. "Paying for confidence: An experimental study of the demand for non-instrumental information," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 304-324, November.
    25. Ananda Ganguly & Joshua Tasoff, 2017. "Fantasy and Dread: The Demand for Information and the Consumption Utility of the Future," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4037-4060, December.
    26. Tali Sharot & Cass R. Sunstein, 2020. "How people decide what they want to know," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 14-19, January.
    27. Kfir Eliaz & Andrew Schotter, 2007. "Experimental Testing of Intrinsic Preferences for NonInstrumental Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 166-169, May.
    28. Gneezy, Uri & Rockenbach, Bettina & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2013. "Measuring lying aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 293-300.
    29. Barkan, Rachel & Danziger, Shai & Shani, Yaniv, 2016. "Do as I say, not as I do: Choice–advice differences in decisions to learn information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 57-66.
    30. Russell Golman & David Hagmann & George Loewenstein, 2017. "Information Avoidance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 96-135, March.
    31. Polman, Evan & Wu, Kaiyang, 2020. "Decision making for others involving risk: A review and meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    32. Liu, Yi & Polman, Evan & Liu, Yongfang & Jiao, Jiangli, 2018. "Choosing for others and its relation to information search," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 65-75.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jantsje M. Mol & Ivan Soraperra & Joël J. van der Weele, 2023. "Spoiling the party. Experimental evidence on the willingness to transmit inconvenient ethical information," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-062/I, Tinbergen Institute, revised 29 Nov 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lohse, Johannes & McDonald, Rebecca, 2021. "Absolute groupishness and the demand for information," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242454, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Prati, Alberto & Saucet, Charlotte, 2024. "The causal effect of a health treatment on beliefs, stated preferences and memories," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    3. Liu, Jia & Sonntag, Axel & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2022. "Information defaults in repeated public good provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 356-369.
    4. Friehe, Tim & Pannenberg, Markus, 2021. "Time preferences and overconfident beliefs: Evidence from germany," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    5. Chadi, Adrian & Homolka, Konstantin, 2022. "Little Lies and Blind Eyes – Experimental Evidence on Cheating and Task Performance in Work Groups," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 122-159.
    6. Celse, Jeremy & Karakostas, Alexandros & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2023. "Relative risk taking and social curiosity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 243-264.
    7. Radu, Vranceanu & Delphine, Dubart, 2019. "Experimental evidence on deceitful communication: does everyone have a price ?," ESSEC Working Papers WP1806, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    8. Marta Serra-Garcia & Nora Szech, 2022. "The (In)Elasticity of Moral Ignorance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 4815-4834, July.
    9. Buckle, Georgia E. & Füllbrunn, Sascha & Luhan, Wolfgang J., 2021. "Lying for others: The impact of agency on misreporting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    10. Daniele Pennesi, 2020. "Identity and information acquisition," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 610, Collegio Carlo Alberto, revised 2021.
    11. Thomas Mariotti & Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech & Jonas von Wangenheim, 2023. "Information Nudges and Self-Control," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2182-2197, April.
    12. Khalmetski, Kiryl & Rockenbach, Bettina & Werner, Peter, 2017. "Evasive lying in strategic communication," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 59-72.
    13. Huber, Christoph & Litsios, Christos & Nieper, Annika & Promann, Timo, 2023. "On social norms and observability in (dis)honest behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 1086-1099.
    14. Barron, Kai & Nurminen, Tuomas, 2020. "Nudging cooperation in public goods provision," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 88, pages 1-1.
    15. Weiwei Tasch & Daniel Houser, 2018. "Social Preferences and Social Curiosity," Working Papers 1067, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    16. Daniel J. Benjamin & Kristen Cooper & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball, 2023. "From Happiness Data to Economic Conclusions," NBER Working Papers 31727, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Klimm, Felix, 2019. "Suspicious success – Cheating, inequality acceptance, and political preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 36-55.
    18. Marta Serra-Garcia & Nora Szech, 2020. "Demand for Covid-19 Antibody Testing, and Why It Should Be Free," CESifo Working Paper Series 8340, CESifo.
    19. Kai Barron & Robert Stüber & Roel van Veldhuizen, 2022. "Moral Motive Selection in the Lying-Dictator Game," CESifo Working Paper Series 9911, CESifo.
    20. Dato, Simon & Feess, Eberhard & Nieken, Petra, 2019. "Lying and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 193-218.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information; Spectator experiment; Happiness; Intrinsic preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:202:y:2022:i:c:p:119-130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.